Vigilante_film
Vigilante film
Film genre
The vigilante film is a film genre in which the protagonist or protagonists engage in vigilante behavior, taking the law into their own hands. Vigilante films are usually revenge films in which the legal system fails protagonists, leading them to become vigilantes. The vigilante film has in recent years often crossed over with the superhero genre, due to character origin stories frequently involving an injustice having been committed against them.
In United States cinema, vigilante films gained prominence during the 1970s with "touchstones" like Death Wish and Dirty Harry, both of which received multiple sequels. The 1974 film Death Wish has been described as officially starting the genre, causing many cheap imitations and knockoffs such as Vigilante and Vigilante Force, with the most financially successful being 1980's The Exterminator.[1]
The Los Angeles Times reported, "Vigilante vengeance was the cinematic theme of the [1970s], flourishing in the more respectable precincts of the new American cinema even as it fueled numerous exploitation flicks," referring to Taxi Driver as a respectable example of the genre.[2] It reported in 2009 that such films were making a comeback after "the comparatively prosperous and peaceable 1990s", with examples like Walking Tall (2004), Death Sentence (2007) and Law Abiding Citizen (2009).[2]
This list related to film, television, or video is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (October 2021) |
Pre-1965 vigilante films
Film | Year | Ref. |
---|---|---|
Tracked by Bloodhounds; or, A Lynching at Cripple Creek | 1904 | |
The White Caps | 1905 | [3] |
The Birth of a Nation | 1915 | |
Judex | 1916 | |
The Adventures of Robin Hood | 1938 | [4] |
The Mark of Zorro | 1940 | |
The Ox-Bow Incident | 1943 | [5] |
The Big Heat | 1953 | [6] |
The Bravados | 1958 | [7] |
The Virgin Spring | 1960 | [8] |
Treasure of the Silver Lake | 1962 | [9] |
Youth of the Beast | 1963 | [10] |
Late 60s-mid 80s vigilante film wave
Late 1980s to the present
- Richard B. Armstrong, Mary Willems Armstrong. (2010). Encyclopedia of Film Themes, Settings and Series. McFarland. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-7864-4572-1
- Lim, Dennis (October 19, 2009). "Revenge, our cinematic tradition". Los Angeles Times.
- "Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company - American Themes and Values: Family and Society". University of California Press.
- Lichtenfeld, Eric (September 13, 2007). "Killer Films". Slate. Retrieved July 26, 2013.
- Lichtenfeld, Eric (2007). Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie. Wesleyan. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8195-6801-4.
- Staff (August 13, 2013). "24 Frames: Vigilante Justice!". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 17, 2013.
- Plumb, Alistair (April 1, 2010). "The 8 Most Kick-Ass Movie Vigilantes". Empire. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
- Firecloud, Johnny (November 18, 2009). "10 Best Vigilante Films". CraveOnline. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
- Stringer, Rebecca (January 2011). "From Victim to Vigilante". Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Cinema. Routeledge. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Rohit, Parimal. "Defending 'Defendor'". Archived from the original on 2010-08-08. Retrieved 2010-06-02.
- Scott, A. O. (April 15, 2010). "Brutal Truths About Violence". The New York Times.
- "Hugh Jackman to Star in Vigilante Thriller PRISONERS for November 2013 Release". Collider.com. March 15, 2012. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
- Coyle, Jake (June 24, 2013). "Carrey says 'Kick-Ass 2' too violent after Newtown". The Big Story. Associated Press. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
- "The Outlaw Michael Howe (2013) - Rotten Tomatoes". www.rottentomatoes.com. Archived from the original on 2015-11-02.
- Steinberg, Don (September 18, 2014). "'The Equalizer': Vigilante Justice". The Wall Street Journal.
- "Last Blood Isn't a Rambo Story, It's An Old Man Punisher Movie". 22 September 2019.
- Hoppenstand, Gary (1993). "Lethal weapons: The gun as icon in the popular urban vigilante film". In Loukides, Paul; Fuller, Linda K. (eds.). Beyond the Stars 3: The Material World in American Popular Film. Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-87972-623-2.
- Novak, Glenn D. (November 1987). "Social Ills and the One-Man Solution: Depictions of Evil in the Vigilante Film". International Conference on the Expressions of Evil in Literature and the Visual Arts.